Zero Dark Thirty is a terrific spy thriller.Almost nobody mentions that. Everybody talks about the controversial issues raised by Catherine Bigelow's new movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden -- the use of torture, the slam at criminal defense lawyers -- but if you can set aside your differences with the politics of the characters (and by extension, the filmmakers) Zero … [Read more...] about Zero Dark Thirty – Short Review
The Harlot’s Addiction — Part 2: Difficult Jobs
In Part 1, I introduced the concept of rational addiction and speculated that failure to account for it causes us to underestimate the benefits that other people receive from certain activities, which leads us to believe that there is something unnaturally wrong about their high levels of consumption.A recent example of this is NRA President Wayne LaPierre's diatribe … [Read more...] about The Harlot’s Addiction — Part 2: Difficult Jobs
Certificate of Greed
How screwed-up is the economics of our healthcare system? So crazy that stuff like this happens all the time: The proposal by Vista Health System to build a $131 million hospital in Lindenhurst would add more beds to an area that already has a substantial surplus, according to a report released today by the staff of the state health care facilities board.The plan by … [Read more...] about Certificate of Greed
The Harlot’s Addiction — Part 1: Rational Addiction
A few weeks ago, Maggie McNeill, the Honest Courtesan, wrote about the use and abuse of the word addiction: The belief that people can become “addicted” to things that do not produce chemical dependency (food, sex, the internet, etc) is fallacious in two ways. The first, which we have discussed before, is a confusion of the concept of addiction (physical and psychological … [Read more...] about The Harlot’s Addiction — Part 1: Rational Addiction
Why I Prefer My Readers
Today I happened to read a tweet from @furrygirl: It may seem like a childish metric, but as a general rule, you know how effective your activism is by how fiercely the state comes after you. She should know. In 2011, out of curiosity, she sent off FOIA requests to several government agencies for her record, and got a bit of a shock: I'd actually pretty much forgotten about … [Read more...] about Why I Prefer My Readers